


the line begins to blur

by foundCarcosa



Category: Fable 3 (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-28
Updated: 2014-10-28
Packaged: 2018-02-23 01:36:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2529200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foundCarcosa/pseuds/foundCarcosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An examination of Benjamina -- less fangirl, more lost girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the line begins to blur

She made pies because her mother had made them, and had taught her with such loving care — how to make sure the meat was seared before it was folded into the buttery-soft crust, how to spice it just-right, how to know when it was baked through-and-through.  
She made pies because she was _good_ at it, and because she liked to see the smiles on people’s faces when they bit into that flaky crust and tasted the succulent, juicy meat within.

Everyone smiled when they tasted one of Benjamina’s pies. It wasn’t the jeering grins of the boys she knew in her youth, or the sneering smiles of noble ladies who wouldn’t let her pass in Millfields without nearly falling into the lake.  
No, these were real smiles — of appreciation, of delight. Of love.

There was only one man that wouldn’t look at her, or eat her pies, or smile at her.  
And it festered like a wound.

He had a manservant, Benny, or Barty, something like that. Sometimes he hit on her, all gleaming mismatched eyes, all handsy and presumptuous. She put up with it, because this Brad or whoever was her _in._

She wore her finest to Master Reaver’s society ball — a gift from her mother, one of her own dresses from when she had been Someone. Appropriately frilly, and of a luscious magenta hue, crafted by one of Bowerstone’s premier stylists, and still smelling of the oils Benjamina’s mother used to wear before she stopped being able to afford them.

She wore her finest to Master Reaver’s society ball, but apparently, her finest wasn’t enough. The industrialist did not spare a glance.

Benjamina could hear her mother’s words in her mind— “Never let anyone tell you you ain’t good enough, baby. You’re perfect the way you are.”

Benjamina could hear her customers’ words in her mind— “You’ll make some man very happy one day! This is the best I’ve ever had! You’re a genius, Benjy!”

And who was this puffed-up magnate, thinking he could spurn her? He’d never tasted her pies. He’d never given her an opportunity to regale him with her vocabulary, her impressive learning, gleaned from only the best books.

She watched him carouse with powdered ladies in the latest fashions as she pulled disconsolately at a loose thread on her admittedly shabby frock, and felt righteous anger bloom within her not-so-ample bosom.

—

In private, her anger blossomed into obsession; she pooled her earnings to purchase bedlinens and wall hangings emblazoned with the Reaver Industries emblem, slipped between those bed sheets and slipped her hand between her thighs as she imagined what it would be like to lay the industrialist low, drug him with her cooking and then ride him hard until admissions of love spilled from those thin white lips like honey…

Her pies grew leaner, meaner, and the customers stopped smiling, and she knew why — it was _his_ fault, he was putting her out, he was mocking her, him and that filthy manservant of his, laughing in her face, just like they’d all laughed when she was younger.

She shut down the pie stand.  
She spent the rest of her savings on better clothing, on a new hairstyle, on face-paint, and of course, on more and more things to bring her closer to the object of her maddened affections.

And she sharpened the knives she used to use on meat, sharpened them until they gleamed.

 _“Reaver,”_ she whispered, until her breath fogged the shining blade, and kissed it, lovingly, the way she’d have kissed his own lips, had he only smiled at her.


End file.
